Henry James

It's not my fate to give up--I know it can't be.

The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful mustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her.

I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it.

I am not afraid,_ she said; which seemed quite presumptuous enough.__ou are not afraid of suffering?___es, I am afraid of suffering. But I am not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily,_ she added.__ don__ believe you do,_ said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets.__ don__ think that__ a fault,_ she answered. __t is not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that.___ou were not, certainly.___ am not speaking of myself._ And she turned away a little.__o, it isn__ a fault,_ said her cousin. __t__ a merit to be strong.___nly, if you don__ suffer, they call you hard,_ Isabel remarked. They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which they had returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall, at the foot of the staircase. Here Ralph presented his companion with her bed-room candle, which he had taken from a niche. __ever mind what they call you,_ he said. __hen you do suffer, they call you an idiot. The great point is to be as happy as possible.

The finer natures were those that shone at the larger times.

She was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation.

It had been agreed between them that lighted candles at wayside inns, in strange countries amid mountain scenery, gave the evening meal a peculiar poetry.

Be not afraid of life believe that life is worth living and your belief will create the fact.

To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live.

Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it.

It's time to start living the life you've imagined.

I never did anything in life to anyone's imagination.

The young girl inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again; and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself.

He was a dim secondary social success -- and all with people who had truly not an idea of him. It was all mere surface sound, this murmur of their welcome, this popping of their corks -- just as his gestures of response were the extravagant shadows, emphatic in proportion as they meant little, of some game of 'ombres chinoises' [French: "shadow play"].

The place suggested a convent with the modern improvements__n asylum in which privacy, though unbroken, might be not quite identical with privation, and meditation, though monotonous, might be of a cheerful cast.

I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.

Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal.

There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.